One or more aspects of the present invention relate, in general, to processing within a computing environment, and in particular, to re-characterizing processors of the computing environment.
Typically, highly reliable computer systems are constructed from multiple processing elements (referred to herein as processors), some of which may be inactive spares to be used in the case of processor failure. As spare processors are consumed as replacements, the failing processors are placed into an inactive state.
The failing processors in the inactive state often remain in that state until they are physically replaced by other processors. If too many processors become inactive due to failure and are not replaced, the system may run out of spares resulting in a degrade in system performance or a reduction in system capacity.